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Inhabited by a succession of Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians and Normans, Britain has spent centuries simmering into a confusing toponymic soup of counties, cities and castles.
Over time, their names have further shifted and skewed, taking on their own idiosyncrasies and sometimes becoming utterly unpredictable. Happisburgh is “Haze-bur-ruh.” Cholmondeley is “Chum-lee”. Leominster is “Lem-stuh.”
In a land where rules are so often cast out the window, sometimes it’s simply a case of learning each place name on its own strange merits. Even some of Britain’s best-known locations are liable to trip up the unsuspecting visitor. Here are some to look out for.
London loves to find ways to befuddle. If not the multicolored spaghetti of a Tube system, then it’s the pronunciation of place names — especially these:
The crude stereotype of an American in London is the Fodor-wielding lost soul, asking the way to “Lie-cess-ter Square.” Leicester Square is named for the area that was once Leicester Fields, home to Leicester House, home of Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester, Leicester being a city in Leicestershire.
That’s a lot of Leicesters, and you’ll want to pronounce them correctly. It’s “Less-stuh” — the “cester” is a tricksy suffix we’ll return to presently.
The well-to-do neighborhood of Marylebone is commonly mispronounced.
It has a picturesque etymology which has everything to do with a Mary and nothing to do with bones; it stems from “St Mary at the Bourne,” a church called St. Mary’s built on the banks of the old Tyburn river.
Call it “Mary-lee-bone” at your peril. It’s “Mar-luh-bon.” As for the Tyburn: it’s long been buried underground. Speaking of which…
An ability to pronounce Holborn will get you far. It is, after all, another Central London district, not to mention a busy Central line Tube station.
No doubt you’ve already guessed that it’s not “Hol-born”, because that would be too easy. What we’ve got here is “Ho-bun”, derived from “hollow spring.”
The area is also home to the ornate Holborn Viaduct, which — just to demonstrate how topsy-turvy London is — bridges a river that was buried long before the viaduct actually opened.
Pall Mall has nothing to do with a shopping mall. This strip of high-end embassies and gentlemen’s clubs running parallel with the Mall (the long, straight road leading to Buckingham Palace) can be found on the Monopoly board, and is pronounced “Pal Mal.”
It is, rather wonderfully, named for a croquet-like game that hailed from Italy called pallamaglio or “ball-mallet.” The game was played here by 17th-century London aristocrats. Confusingly, the English version of the game was called “pell mell,” not pall mall. The Mall is also sounded “Mal,” so that’s something.
Meaning “southern defensive work,” Southwark is the area immediately south of London Bridge, once used to guard the city proper, just across the Thames. As a well-known part of London, it’s indefensible to get the pronunciation wrong. It’s “Suth-uk.”
Bicester and Cirencester
Home to a designer shopping outlet that has become one of the UK’s top attractions, particularly with Chinese tourists, train-loads of fashionistas flock to Bicester on day trips from London Marylebone station (see above for the pronunciation of “Marylebone”).
But how many daytrippers, we wonder, ask for a return ticket to “Bye-sester”? It’s “Bis-tuh”, and means either “Fort of the Warriors” or “Two Forts.” In fact, Bicester follows the same logic of Leicester (also see above), where “cester” is shortened to “stuh.”
Also see Worcester/Worcestershire (“Wuh-stuh”/”Wuh-stuh-sheer”), home of the much-loved Worcestershire Sauce condiment. All of a sudden, things start to make a little sense.
Except there’s an exception. Enter the beautiful Cotswold town of Cirencester, pronounced just as it looks: “Ciren-cess-ter.” And why not.
“Burg” is a common suffix for a number of European cities — think Hamburg in Germany, or Johannesburg in South Africa. It means “castle” or “fortified town,” and both of the above “burg”s (and many more besides) are pronounced as they’re spelled.
In the UK, of course, confusion reigns supreme. The origins of “Edin” are obscure, but date back to at least the 6th century, when the area was known as Eidyn. In “Edinburgh” it’s pronounced “Ed-in.”
So far, so simple. But while the “burgh” in Edinburgh also translates roughly as “castle,” its pronunciation is given over to a soft “bruh.” The same goes for Knaresborough, Peterborough and Farnborough among others, though note they all end in “borough,” not “burgh.”
If in doubt, you could always call Edinburgh by its nickname, “Auld Reekie.” Just make sure you’re pronouncing “Auld” correctly (“awld”).
Thanks in no small measure to its roles in “Harry Potter” and “Downton Abbey,” over a third of a million tourists visit Alnwick Castle, Northumberland each year. But how many of these know how to pronounce “Alnwick” before they get there?
The name roughly translates as “settlement on the River Aln” — “Aln” likely being named for the Gaulish god Alauna, while “wick” is a standard Anglo-Saxon suffix, along with the likes of “ham,” “ford,” “stead” and “stow.”
But here’s the rub: the L in Alnwick is silent, as is the W. What you’re left with is “An-ick.” To make matters more mystifying, a one-hour drive to the southwest of Alnwick takes you to the Northumberland village of… Anick. The two are pronounced exactly the same.
Picturesque winding cobbled streets welcome tourists to the Somerset town of Frome, although the locals must get exhausted correcting visitors whenever “Frome” leaves their mouths.
It’s pronounced “Froom,” and derives, unusually, from an adjective (“fine, fair or brisk”) used to describe the flow of the River Frome, which passes through the town.
Like many of the locations on this list, chances are that if you’re a Brit who’s never been to Frome, you may well have been saying it wrong too. Nonetheless, when in Frome…
The name Stanton can be found scattered liberally around England; it means simply “stone settlement” and is said how you’d expect: “Stan-ton.”
As you’ll have already figured, however, the ruggedly beautiful coastal town of Hunstanton, North Norfolk, is not playing ball. It’s pronounced “Hun-stn” — a name that’s likely been smoothed down over the years for quicker, simpler pronunciation.
Except, of course, for non-locals, it has the opposite effect.
Beaulieu and Belvoir Castle
One glance at “Beaulieu” tells you this is a French influence. The name of this idyllic Hampshire village — home to a 13th-century abbey and the National Motor Museum, which houses one of the vehicles from “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” no less — means simply “beautiful place”. Très simple.
Except that if you think the “beau” here is said how the French would say it, you’ve got another think coming. It’s “Byoo-lee”.
And that’s not even the strangest bastardized French name: this honor goes to Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire, which is pronounced… “Beaver Castle”. By the same token, De Beauvoir Town in east London is affectionately nicknamed “Beavertown,” a moniker borrowed by the local Beavertown Brewery.
You’d think there was only one credible way to pronounce the Cornish fishing village of Mousehole (especially as one theory suggests it took its name from a nearby cave which resembled a mouse hole).
The quirky name isn’t enough though; it has to be pronounced quirkily too.
Perhaps centuries of Cornish cider-swigging led to its slurred modern-day pronunciation, but however it came about, it’s not “Mouse Hole” but “Mow-zul.”
The Cornish, by the way, have their own language, which was all but extinct by the 19th century, yet is now enjoying a mini renaissance. Some locals believe the county should be upgraded to a country in its own right. At which point the correct sounding of “Mousehole” may become an entry requirement.
It may look like something out of a Monty Python sketch, but — deep breath now — Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (Llanfairpwllgwyngyll for short) is as real a place as Cardiff, Swansea or Wrexham.
While castles, sweeping valleys and Ryan Reynolds-owned soccer teams are the blockbuster Welsh attractions, tourist hordes also show up at the small North Wales town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyll each year to get their photo taken with its (in)famous railway station sign. If you want to impress the locals, here’s how to pronounce it:
“Klan-vai-uh-puhth-gwin-guhth-guh-geuh-uh-thwuhn-dro-buhth-luhn-tuh-si-lee-ow-go-go-gok”.
At least the etymology is clearer than most. It means “St Mary’s Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel Near to the Rapid Whirlpool of Llantysilio of the Red Cave.”
Maybe just call it that instead.
